CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER

Name: Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer                                                     
Born: 13 December 1929 Toronto, Ontario                                                   
                                                                                           
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (born December 13, 1929) is a Canadian                     
theater, film and television actor. In a career that spans over five decades and           
includes substantial roles in film, television, and theater, Plummer is perhaps           
best known for the iconic role of Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music.                 
                                                                                           
Plummer was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of Isabella Mary (née               
Abbott) and John Plummer, who was a university secretary and worked at McGill             
University. His maternal great-grandfather was former Canadian Prime                       
Minister Sir John Abbott. Following his parents' divorce, he moved with his               
mother to live with her family at Senneville, Quebec, near Montreal. He studied           
to be a concert pianist but developed a love of the theatre at an early age and           
began acting in high school. He travelled by train to study with Canadian                 
Repertory Company in Ottawa.                                                               
                                                                                           
It was in Montreal that Plummer began his professional career on stage and radio           
in both French and English. After Eva Le Gallienne gave him his New York debut (1954),     
he performed in two plays with Katharine Cornell, The Constant Wife, and The               
Dark Is Light Enough by Christopher Fry, for which he won a Theatre World Award.           
Cornell’s husband Guthrie McClintic took him to Paris (1955) to play Jason               
opposite Dame Judith Anderson in Medea. Then came The Lark, opposite Julie                 
Harris. Plummer went on to star in many celebrated, prize-winning productions on           
Broadway and London's West End including Elia Kazan's production of Archibald             
MacLeish's Pulitzer winning play J.B. and the title role in Anthony Burgess'               
musical Cyrano for which Plummer won his first Tony. A recent Broadway success             
was as Barrymore for which he won a Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle           
Award — The Edwin Booth Award, the Boston Critic's Award, Chicago's Jefferson           
Award, and Los Angeles' Ovation Award as best actor 1997-1998.                             
                                                                                           
He was also a leading member of Britain's National Theatre under Sir Laurence             
Olivier, the Royal Shakespeare Company under Sir Peter Hall where he won London’s       
best actor Evening Standard Theatre Award. In its formative years, he played at           
the Stratford Festival of Canada under Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham.             
He has played most of the great roles in the classic repertoire. He also                   
appeared in a lauded production of King Lear, directed by Jonathan Miller and             
performed at Lincoln Center. Plummer's performance as Lear garnered him his               
sixth Tony nomination. He returned to Broadway in 2007 as Henry Drummond in a             
revival of Inherit the Wind, winning a Drama Desk Award nomination as well as             
his seventh Tony nomination.                                                               
                                                                                           
Plummer returns to the stage for a turn at The Stratford Festival of Canada in             
May 2008. He will be staring in George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra"               
directed by Tony winner Des McAnuff.                                                       
                                                                                           
Plummer's eclectic career on screen began in 1958 when Sidney Lumet cast him in           
Stage Struck. Since then he has appeared in a vast number of notable films which           
include The Man Who Would Be King, Battle of Britain, Waterloo, The Silent                 
Partner, Dragnet, Inside Daisy Clover, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,             
Malcolm X, Dolores Claiborne, Wolf, Twelve Monkeys, Murder by Decree, Somewhere           
in Time and Syriana. Recent successes include Michael Mann's Oscar-nominated The           
Insider playing television journalist Mike Wallace, for which he won the Boston,           
Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas and the National Critics Awards, and Ron Howard's         
Academy Award winning A Beautiful Mind as well. He played Arthur Case in Spike             
Lee's 2006 film Inside Man, and the philosopher Aristotle in Alexander,                   
alongside Colin Farrell. In 2004, Plummer played John Adams Gates in National             
Treasure.                                                                                 
                                                                                           
Owing to the box office success and continued popularity of The Sound Of Music,           
Plummer is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Captain Von Trapp.                     
                                                                                           
Among his television appearances, which number almost a hundred, are the Emmy             
winning BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore, the five-time Emmy winning The Thorn           
Birds, the Emmy-winning Nuremberg, the Emmy-winning Little Moon of Alban and the           
Emmy-winning Moneychangers.                                                               
                                                                                           
He co-starred in American Tragedy as F. Lee Bailey (for which he received a               
Golden Globe Nomination), and appeared in Four Minute Mile, Miracle Planet, and           
a documentary by Ric Burns' about Eugene O’Neill. He received an Emmy nomination         
for his performance in Our Fathers, and was reunited with Julie Andrews for a             
television production of On Golden Pond.                                                   
                                                                                           
He narrated the animated television series [[Madeline] as well as the animated             
television series [(David the Gnome)]